Tag Archives: affordable and reliable energy

Air Conditioning Costs Are Expected To Skyrocket This Summer, Thanks To Biden

From ClimateRealism

*Editors’ Note: This article, written by The Heartland Institute’s Chris Talgo, describes how air conditioning costs could spike this summer, due largely to president Biden’s energy and climate policies. Climate Realism has previously covered the folly of this administration’s approach to energy here, here, and here. 
By Chris Talgo

According to a new report by the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), “The financial burden to families of keeping cool this summer will increase by 7.9% across the nation to an average of $719 from June through September, up from $661 during the same period last year.”

The report, “Summer Residential Cooling Outlook: Residential Electric Utility Expenditures Projected to Reach Record Levels, Highest in 10 years,” begins with this ominous sentence: “Home energy is becoming increasingly unaffordable for low-income families.”

Making matters worse, NEADA notes, “Summer cooling costs are coming right on top of this winter’s higher heating season costs.”

And, “The level of utility consumer debt – the amount consumers owe their utilities – has increased from $17.5 billion in January 2023 to $20.3 billion in December 2023, and NEADA estimates that 16% (21.2 million) of all U.S. households are behind on their energy bills.”

Obviously, this is terrible news for hardworking Americans, most of whom are already struggling to make ends meet under Bidenomics. As of late 2023, 78 percent of Americans said they are living paycheck-to-paycheck, per a payroll.org survey.

Needless to say, it is also yet another economic black mark against the Biden administration. As the report shows, the sudden and steep rise in home energy costs happens to coincide with exactly when Biden entered the White House and launched his war against affordable and reliable energy.

In 2017, the first year of former President Donald Trump’s term, the average U.S. electric bill for June to September was $502. In 2018, it increased slightly to $531. By 2019, it had decreased to $527. By 2020, when most Americans were stuck indoors due to COVID-19 lockdowns and probably using their air conditioning more than ever, the average electric bill for the summer months had increased slightly again to $556.

All told, during the four years of Trump’s presidency, Americans paid, on-average, $2,116 to keep their homes cool and comfortable during the height of summer.

On the other hand, the average electric bill for June to September under Biden has increased substantially. In 2021, Americans paid, on average, $573. In 2022, this jumped to $660. In 2023, it rose slightly to $662. In 2024, as mentioned above, it is expected to surpass $700 for the first time ever. During Biden’s term, Americans will pay, on-average, $2,614 to keep their homes cool and comfortable – nearly $500 more than Trump’s term.

Unfortunately, Biden’s war on affordable and reliable energy has impacted Americans far more than just their air conditioning bills. Since Biden took office, the cost of a gallon of gasoline has doubled and the total cost of energy has increased by 37 percent.

As mentioned in the report, high energy costs have a disproportionate impact on low- and middle-income Americans simply because they spend a higher proportion of their income on electricity, gasoline and other energy-related items. Whereas wealthy Americans have the disposable income to offset these price spikes, hardworking Americans do not have that luxury.

This means low- and middle-income Americans are being forced to make difficult daily decisions in terms of their spending habits. In real life terms, this means they have to constantly consider trade-offs. Can they afford to fill their car with gasoline this week? Or, would that money be better spent on groceries? Do they have enough money to pay the utility bill at the end of the month? Or, has that money already been allocated to pay rent?

These are the actual hardships that Americans are increasingly facing because President Biden foolishly believes that affordable and reliable energy, in the form of fossil fuels, must be replaced with so-called renewable energy. Never mind that wind and solar – Biden’s preferred replacements for oil, natural gas, and coal – are neither economically viable nor scalable.

By the looks of it, Biden is stuck between a rock and a hard place. If he were to abandon his climate change agenda and embrace affordable energy, his donors and left-wing base would go apoplectic. However, if he refuses to acknowledge that his anti-fossil-fuel agenda has made life significantly worse for vast swathes of Americans, he will likely lose precious votes come November.

With less than five months before voters start heading to the polls, it might not even matter at this point. Americans have lived and struggled under Bidenomics for more than three years. They should know that four more years under Biden’s misguided energy policies would likely result in more pain and suffering.

Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is editorial director at The Heartland Institute.

Originally posted at The Center Square, reposted with permission. 

Red-state AGs sue blue states for imposing climate extremism everywhere

From CFACT

By Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

A coalition of 19 state attorneys general, led by Steve Marshall of Alabama, is suing five other states — California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island — saying the latter group’s litigation seeking billions of dollars in damages from fossil-fuel companies for their role in the alleged “climate crisis” would undermine U.S. energy security and jeopardize the livelihoods of Americans.

In their May 23 complaint filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, these red-state attorneys general assert that California and its climate allies “are threatening to weaken our national energy system through tort litigation under their state laws and in their state courts.” They add that “attempts by defendant states to impose liability or obtain equitable relief from energy companies for emissions by or in plaintiff states (including by targeting protected speech) is unconstitutional and beyond the competence of defendants to prosecute.”

Far more than a mere shakedown of energy companies by avaricious blue states, the attack on fossil-fuel producers is a scheme to use state tort laws and state courts to regulate out-of-state emissions and thus control energy use nationwide. Rhode Island, for example, seeks compensatory damages for harm from “dire climate-related effects” from certain greenhouse-gas emissions. It doesn’t matter whether emissions come from blue states, Alabama, or across the planet. “The effects are all the same and, as a result, they are seeking to punish energy companies for selling their products anywhere,” the lawsuit argues.

And it’s not just the companies that will bear the brunt of the punishment.

“The theory advanced by these states is truly radical. A small gas station in rural Alabama could owe money to the people of Minnesota simply for selling a gallon of gas. The customer might even be liable, too,” Alabama’s Marshall said in a statement. “These states are welcome to enforce their preferred policies within their jurisdiction, but they do not have the authority to dictate our national energy policy.”

“If the Supreme Court lets them continue, California and its allies will imperil access to affordable energy for every American,” Marshall added. “That would threaten our national security and harm millions of Americans already struggling to pay for gas and groceries. To protect Alabama citizens and constitutional order, we had no choice but to sue.”

The reference to the Constitution is crucial to getting the Supreme Court to step in and put an end to the blue states’ extraterritorial power grab. “While the Constitution preserves as expansive realm of state sovereignty, that authority ends at each state’s borders,” Marshall wrote in The Wall Street Journal. “Alabama doesn’t get to say what law applies to California, and Hawaii can’t regulate conduct in Indiana.”

The case, Alabama v. California, is the latest legal skirmish pitting blue jurisdictions seeking to impose their energy policies on the rest of the nation against red states and fossil-fuel producers opposing those efforts.

Dozens of lawsuits against oil and gas companies (many of them funded by the Rockefeller Family Fund) have been filed in state courts in the last few years. They claim that the companies have violated a variety of state laws, including statutes covering consumer protection, nuisance, failure to warn, fraud, and racketeering — all related to the companies’ emissions of greenhouse gases. In addition to states cited in Alabama v. California, jurisdictions suing the oil and gas companies include Massachusetts, New York, the cities of Chicago, Honolulu, New York, and Boulder, Colo., along with several Native American tribes.

Knowing that climate-obsessed jurisdictions are relishing the home-court advantage provided by state courts, the fossil-fuel companies — now joined by the 19 red-state attorneys general — want the proceedings shifted to federal courts.

So far, their efforts have fallen short. In April 2023, for example, the Supreme Court declined an appeal by ExxonMobil and other oil companies to move most of the cases filed against them from state to federal court. If the Supreme Court continues to remain aloof, these cases — beginning with Massachusetts — will go to trial in a few months, kicking off litigation that could last for years.

All this comes amid mounting concerns over how the nation is to meet its growing energy needs at a time when the Biden administration, deep-blue jurisdiction, and deep-pocketed foundations are undertaking a concerted effort to block access to affordable and reliable energy.

The vaunted (and heavily taxpayer-funded) transition to green energy is colliding headlong with developments that this elite-driven agenda did not foresee. They include consumers shunning EVs, local resistance to wind and solar plantations, threats to grid stability caused by increased reliance on intermittent renewable energy, soaring household energy costs, and skyrocketing demand for power by proliferating, energy-hungry, artificial intelligence-driven data centers.

Another way to put this is to say that the blue states’ assault on the nation’s energy security could not have come at a worse time.

This article originally appeared at The Hill